Can my heart stand being a counterpoint?
To forever call and respond to phantoms and ghosts?
The war is still raging against me.
Are my words and my loneliness all you need?
Is this the blade you found that draws the most blood?
Draws the song of me…
I wish you only desired my happiness.
Even if that meant my silence.
That I just laughed and laughed till my face got red,
Like my grandfather’s did,
At dinnertime with the ones I love.
While time ate our elbows and knees,
While we could grow old and hungrier for peace,
For sleep.
Exhausted by laughter and love,
Not by song and grief and all this witnessing.
I love you.
But would you keep me if I tucked my words away?
If I sat by a fading fire in the evening silently.
No matter how loudly the you sang to me,
No matter how much I yearned for the sound, too.
Would you still love me if I smiled,
And sipped my tea?
Or are my words,
My blood, and my loneliness,
Just what the stars need from me?